"blue-gum"

Thu Mar 8 15:08:43 UTC 2007

Ye know, they didn' have Dracula back in '87, so I'll betchee a spavined mule the poisonous BGN was pooty much the dadburn scaries' ol' booger they could think of.

  In them parts.

  JL

Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: Re: "blue-gum"
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FWIW, except for a mention in the novel, "Mandingo," where I first
came across it, the only place that I've ever come across "blue(-)gum"
is on this listserv. As for the claim that we blue(-)gums have a
poisonous bite, this listserv is the only place where I've come across
it..

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

-Wilson

On 3/7/07, Laurence Horn wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Laurence Horn
> Subject: Re: "blue-gum"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> >It's too bad that that isn't true. Otherwise, the first time that
> >someone told me to bite his ass would have been the last time.
> >
> >Fangs for the memory, Jon!
> >
> >-Willson
>
> John W. Blassingame (the transmitter of that not yet extinct
> superstition) appears here from the dead himself, so to speak. A
> voluble member of the Department of History and the Program in
> African American Studies, he was quite a presence (and a character)
> here at faculty meetings (and faculty mailings) until his death in
> 2000. For some reason, I remember him best for going farther than
> anyone I have ever known scrupulously to avoid splitting infinitives,
> as it were.
>
> LH
>
> >On 3/7/07, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >>---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >>-----------------------
> >>Sender: American Dialect Society
> >>Poster: Jonathan Lighter
> >>Subject: Re: "blue-gum"
> >>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >>We discussed this some months ago, but the following exx. have
> >>appeared from the dead, so to speak, so here they are.
> >>
> >> 1892, in John W. Blassingame _Slave Testimony_ (Baton Rouge: LSU
> >>Press, 1977) 507: She is what is known as a "blue-gum
> >>nigger."...There was a superstition, not yet extinct, that the bite
> >>of a "blue-gum nigger" is more deadly than that of a rattlesnake.
> >>
> >> 1896 M. E. M. Davis_An Elephant's Track_ (N.Y.: Harper's) 192 :
> >>Der ain' no whiskey in de jug dat kin heal up de bite of a blue-gum
> >>nigger
> >>
> >> a1898 in C. W. Brann _Complete Works of Brann the Iconoclast_ IX
> >>164 :But seriously, a man who will make such a suggestion doesn't
> >>deserve to die a respectable death. He ought to be bit by a
> >>blue-gum nigger, clawed by a buzzard, kicked by a blind jackass and
> >>buried face down in a pile of compost.
> >>
> >> 1899 in Seymour Stark _Men in Blackface_ (N.p.: Xlibris, 2001)
> >>70: I'se a blue-gum nigger, / You don't want to fool wid me, / I'se
> >>as bad a nigger as a nigger man can be.
> >>
> >> 1900-02 Joel Chandler Harris _The Making of a Statesman and Other
> >>Stories_ (N.Y.: McClure Phillips, 1902) 155: "I'm a blue-gum
> >>nigger," remarked the hack-driver, with a frown.
> >>
> >> 1928-29 William Faulkner _The Sound and the Fury_ (rpt. N.Y.:
> >>Random House, 1956) 84: They making a bluegum out of you....And
> >>when family woman look him in the eye in the full of the moon,
> >>chile born bluegum.
> >>
> >> 1931 John E. Uhler _Cane Juice: A Story of Southern Louisiana_
> >>294 (N.Y.: Century, 1931): Dey's a conjur' hyah!...Dey's a blue-gum
> >>nigger hyah.
> >>
> >> 1952 Eugene Brown _Trespass_ (rpt. N.Y.: Popular Library, 1964)
> >>116: Just who in hell you think you is, you blue-gum jigaboo?
> >>
> >> 1965 _New Yorker_ (Apr. 10)
> >>[http://www.newyorker.com/archive/content/?060123fr_archive01] : A
> >>relatively friendly sheriff in Sunflower County, Mississippi,
> >>warned me, confidentially, that my client was a "blue-gum nigger."
> >>"Their mouths are filled with poison," he said. "Don't let him bite
> >>you."...I said I'd try to be careful.
> >>
> >> With luck, I'll never think of this again. The date to beat, from
> >>last time, is 1891.
> >>
> >> JL
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
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> >
> >
> >--
> >All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
> >come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> >-----
> > -Sam'l Clemens
> >
> >Dope wil get you through times of no money better than money will get
> >you through times of no dope.
> >-----
> > -Free-Wheeling Franklin
> >
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>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Sam'l Clemens

Dope wil get you through times of no money better than money will get
you through times of no dope.
-----
-Free-Wheeling Franklin

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